The Top 8 Politically
Correct Error Messages

8> “A suboptimal event has occurred. Windows will now display the Indigo Presentation of Ceased Autonomic Functions.”

7> “That password isn’t the one I wanted, but it was close. Kudos for a valiant effort.”

6> “One of us made a typo, and it wasn’t me.”

5> “This system has performed an act of civil disobedience and will now receive a non-judgmental time-out.”

4> “Please don’t think of this as a ‘User Error’ but rather an ‘Input Exploration Experience’.”

3> “Division by zero would sure be nifty, but the oppressive mathematical elite won’t let us do it.”

2> “This application is unhappy, which caused the other applications to be unhappy, too. Turn off the computer to make them all happy again.”

and the Number 1 Politically Correct Error Message…

1> “Sorry, it seems one of our programmers has confused ‘IRQL’ with ‘Urkel.’”

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Credits:

Selected from 43 submissions from 15 contributors.
This week’s list authors are:

Nathan Sherman, Bellevue, WA — 1, 7
Daniel Attema, Adelaide, Australia — 2, 8
Andrew Hackard, Austin, TX — 3
Bill Livingston, Decatur, AL — 4, 5
Kim Moser, New York, NY — 6, List Moderator, Topic
Doug Crews, San Diego, CA — 8